SAN BLAS, PANAMA TO CARTAGENA, COLUMBIA - JUL 12 - JUL 16

My shuttle to the San Blas Islands is scheduled to leave at 5:30AM but I don't get to bed until almost midnight and there is a party raging in the hostel that night. In the morning I find out there is 6 other people booked on the boat and they are all catching the morning shuttle with me. Of course the shuttle is more than half an hour late which is par for the course in Central America.



Thierry, Karolina, Max & Mitch

 My new ship mates are Mitch from California, Thierry from Switzerland, Karolina from Argentina, Radek & Ian from Canada and Max from Russia. They all had also been staying at Mamallenas hostel. We are all in one SUV except Radek and Ian who are in another following us. The first hour of the ride takes us east along a major highway but then we turn onto a tight twisting road heading northeast for about 2.5 hours crossing the mountains of the continental divide. We go through army check points looking for drug runners 5 times all within about a 40km section of the road. The funny thing is there were no roads that intersected this road anywhere so I'm not sure what the point of 5 check points was. The conversation during the shuttle ride centres around the previous night's party in the hostel which Max is featured prominently. He had decided to try and drink a 26er of something similar to rum and has blacked out most of the evening's events including him throwing up in a dorm room a couple of times. Needless to say, he is not feeling very chipper that morning and swears he will never drink again. I don't think the twisting, up and down road was what he needed that morning.



Corto

 We are expecting to come to some sort of town at the coast where we will then take a small boat to where our sailboat Corto is anchored at El Porvenir Island. But there is no town, it is just a small clearing along a river where boats are gathered collecting travellers from several shuttles that all seem to be arriving at the same time. We quickly approached by a couple of Kuna men with a boat who are here to take us to the sailboat. It's a short boat ride down the river and across a small inlet. Corto looks very nice as we approach, it looks to be in great condition and also looks like a boat that could really sail well; it's a 42' Beneteau. The captain and owner Sebastian and his first mate and cook Angelica greet us warmly and quickly assign us a berth. I end up in the V-berth in the bow with Thierry. Mitch and Radek end up in 1 quarter berth and Ian and Max end up in the other. Karolina and Angelica share the main cabin and the Sebastian will sleep in the cockpit. Sebastian collects our passports and is quickly off to get our exit stamps from Panama Immigration. When he returns he has a friend with him, Schieda a 3 year old Cocker Spaniel who is very excited about all the new people on her boat.

Cayos Chichime

We are then on our way to Cayos Chichime which is a group of 3 small islands with a very protected anchorage where we will spend the night. It's only an hour boat ride to get there and the surrounding islands are beautiful with white sand beaches and the blue-green Caribbean water. The Kuna people call the San Blas Islands the Kuna Yala. Hundreds of tiny islands are part of the Kuna Yala and the largest is only a couple square kilometers in area but most are much smaller. You can't even see the islands on most maps of Panama because they are so small. The is no power, plumbing or communications that link any of the islands together or to the main land.

Kuna in Dugout

Their homes are thatch roofed huts with very flimsy walls and sand floors. A few of the larger island have generators but they are usually small units owned by an individual family. About the only technology item in the island is cell phones. The Kuna still travel in small dug outs and only a few of them have motors. It is a fantastically beautiful area that seems to be entrenched in the past with no hurry top catch up to the present. Even with the sparse living conditions, all of the Kuna people I meet seem very friendly and really happy.



Cayos Chichime

Once we get to Cayos Chichime, there are only 6 or 7 other boats anchored there. The 7 of us get some snorkel gear to explore the local reefs and quickly gear up. Sebastian had pointed out a burned out hull of a 40 foot sailboat on a reef as we entered the protected anchorage. He had also told me about another 47' Beneteau that had sunk recently of this reef which is a good spot for snorkelling. Mitch, Karolina, Thierry and I decide to do a big snorkelling loop around the anchorage checking out the reefs around all 3 of the islands and this wreck. We are all dying to get out of the heat and into the sea but before any of us can get in, Schieda is in first and swims to the nearest island. She then follows us throughout 1.5 hours of snorkelling. Can she ever swim and she does not even seem to get tired. The snorkelling is very good with the highlite being the eerie wreck of the Beneteau. It's pretty much in tact in about 3 or 4 metres of water and seems much bigger than 47'. It sank one night last fall coming into the bay after sunset in a storm after crossing over from Cartagena. The boat was 100 feet off course to far south and hit the reef and sunk in minutes.

When we get back from snorkelling, dinner is in a big bucket at the back of the boat. It's King Crab and Lobster bought from a local Kuna fisherman that came over to the boat shorty after we anchored. We find out that we are going to eat on shore at a local Kuna families house. Only 2 of the 3 islands are inhabited and both seem to have 2 families living on each island. Dinner is amazing and the quantity of food is incredible. It is definitely the best meal I have had travelling so far. After dinner, many crew and passengers from other boats head over to our location where the local family has set up a small bar (cervesas only) and we spend a nice evening getting to know everyone on our boat and some of the people on the other boats in the bay. It's an awesome first day in the San Blas made even better when Karolina points out the Southern Cross constellation which I see for the first time.

Unfortunately, it is raining almost all of the next day so we stay the day at Chichime and we spend a leisurely day being fed like kings with great fresh fruit snacks and an awesome Argentinian beef stew. When the rain stops, we do some more snorkelling, play some cards and just get to know each other better.


Isla de Los Perros

 The next morning the sun has returned and we are off to Isla de Los Perros only 30 minutes away. There is a large old supply boat that sank close to shore, we go snorkelling around the wreck and then circumnavigate the island. The reef is in excellent condition and the sea life is terrific with the highlite being a small school of 15cm squid. Once again, Schieda is right there swimming with us for most of the way. She even knows how to climb the ladder to get back on the boat.

Early that afternoon, we travel 1.5 hours east to Cayos Holandeses. There is a fair little current running through this anchorage so Sebastian takes us up current to the far end of the bay near the reef so we can drift back including Angelica and we do a nice leisurely snorkel back to a small island near where the boat is anchored. We see lots of fish including Barracuda, Stingrays and Nurse Sharks. This time Schieda is left behind but soon joins us on the island. Once again, Sebastian and Angelica feed us like kings. It seems like we just finished a meal or some nice snacks and suddenly it's time to eat again. We had lobster pasta for dinner which was fabulous.


Schieda

Schieda is a great boat dog. She is very friendly and likes to greet everyone every morning or anytime someone returns to the boat or if she returns to the boat. She loves the water and usually jumps in on her own and swims to the nearest island. She will just sit there patiently waiting for someone to come play or swim with her. Her favourite pastime is to fight with crabs. She will dig these small crabs (5 or 6cm wide) out of their hole in the sand and then the battle is on. These crabs are blue with one very large pincher as well as a small pincher. She will bark and bite at the crab while it tries to pinch her. These crabs are very fast and are trying to get to the safety of the water. You will sometimes hear her yelp when she gets pinched on the nose but most fall victim to her bite. The crabs only seem to be in jeopardy when she has an audience cause it's no fun to fight crabs if nobody is watching.

Sebastian on the Way to Cartagena

The next morning Sebastian and Angelica are up before sunrise to get us started towards Cartagena. A typical crossing is around 34 to 36 hours which would get us there in the late afternoon. The weather is nice with a good 15knot breeze but unfortunately, it is almost right on our nose. I get up as we get underway and Sebastian tells me he plans to motor sail all the way there unless the wind lifts a bit so we can make our course under sail. Once we get away from the protected water of the islands, we are sailing right into a 2 metre swell with a short 30cm chop on top. Over the next couple of hours, the rest of my fellow passengers join us on deck. None of them have ever sailed out of site of land before. The wind and waves build and the wind lifts a bit allowing us to motor sail close to our ideal course and we are making a good 6.5knots. There are starting to be some whitecaps and I wonder who will be the first to be sick. Again the flow of food is terrific and everyone seems to be doing great and by sunset that evening we are making good progress although Karolina does get sick once but feels immediately better and is fine the rest of the trip.



Sunset on the Caribbean Sea

 Just before sunset, Sebastian turns off the engine and we are still going over 6knots. I go to bed around 9:00PM as I have promised to take a late night watch to allow Sebastian a chance to get some sleep. The wind builds and moves more on to our nose so we start motor sailing. By 11:00PM we are pounding through some big waves and the V-berth fast becomes a bad place to try and sleep with the up and down motion and the banging on some of the bigger waves. I finally come up on deck around 1:00AM to spell off Sebastian. I got some rest but not much sleep because of the pounding waves and Thierry is up as well. The wind immediately starts to lesson and within 90 minutes, I've had to drop our course down by 15 degrees so we are now on a heading that will take us way west of Cartagena.


Angelica

 The sea also has calmed down but we are now bucking a tide so our speed over land is down to 4.5knots. I last until 4:00AM when my eyes just won't stay open so I wake Sebastian and head back to the V-berth. It is stifling hot in the V-berth and we hadn't taken any water over the bow in a few hours so I open the front hatch a bit to get some airflow. Within 5 minutes we hit a large wave and a gallon of water pours in on my chest and my face with a bit of a splash getting Thierry as well. I'm so tired, other than closing the hatch, I don't care and just grab my towel and try and sleep for the next 3 hours.

I awake to the boat pounding through waves again and suddenly the boat changes course and there is lots of sound coming from on deck. I go up on deck and Sebastian and Angelica are trying to recover a paddle that got washed off the deck by a large wave. The sea is pretty rough and the wind is blowing a good 15 knots and we make 2 passes trying to grab the paddle but finally give up and return to our course. Over the next couple hours everyone awakes and comes on deck except Thierry who is asleep in the main cabin. I can't stay awake and grab a nap in one of the quarter berths.



Karolina & Radek

 The whole time we have been sailing, Sebastian has been trailing a fishing line off the back of the boat. He has an interesting setup, there is no rod, it's just a reel attached to the stern steel rail. I can't help wonder how big a fish he can pull up on this setup. While I'm napping, I hear a commotion on deck and a fish has hit the line. After about 5 minutes of Mitch reeling, Sebastian lands about a 10 pound Yellow Fin Tuna which ends up making a great lunch. Angelica also makes a scrumptious Cerviche later that afternoon. Cerviche is a popular fish dish throughout Central and South America. It is raw fish, raw onions and lime juice and sometimes a little salsa served with crackers or toasted bread and eaten as a dip. It's very tasty and I like to spice it up with some hot sauce but this Cerviche with the fresh tuna is especially good. We also catch a 3 or 4 pound Benito (small Mackerel) just as we site land and a small pod of Spinner Dolphins follow the boat for about 30 minutes a couple hours away from Columbia. We finally pull into the inner harbour of Cartagena just before 9:00PM. It's been a great trip but we are all exhausted. However, Sebastian has a nice surprise for us, he has arranged for some friends to have a BBQ all ready for us at the marina. So, we call a hostel and book some rooms and then spend a couple hours eating and drinking before heading to to the hostel.



Thierry, Karolina & Ian

 The sailing trip far exceeded my expectations and I really enjoyed meeting all the other travellers and the crew. Katolina is a lawyer who has worked the last couple of years in the US. She is about to head to Brazil for some job interviews then fly to Peru for some more travelling. I hope to meet up with her again either in her home town of Buenos Aires or maybe in Brazil if she gets the job she wants. Mitch is from Santa Cruz just south of San Francisco and works as an import/export agent for a food produce company and is flying home at the end of July. Thierry lives in Bern and is a sous chef in a hotel restaurant and flies back home in mid August. Radek is a student living in Peterborough but has been


Mitch

 working as a volunteer on a variety of projects in Honduras over then last 9 months and is heading home near the end of August after visiting Ecuador and Peru. Ian is the brother of Radek's girlfriend and is also a chef at a golf course in Calgary. He's been working as a volunteer on a farm on the Isla de Omotepe for the last few months and is flying home in a couple of weeks. Max is a bit of an enigma and I could never quite tell when he was telling the truth or just being funny in a sly, understated Russian kind of way. He is a translator and lives in Latvia. He comes across as quite serious and sombre and I teased him that he should be a character in a great Russian tragedy that Russian authors are so famous for. And no, he did not drink during the sailing trip.

Max and Andrew

The crew of Corto also were a key in making our trip so enjoyable. Sebastian is from a small town in Argentina and has been sailing since his teens. He has been able to buy Corto with money he has made working as crew on other touring boats. He is only 26 and already has his eye on a nice 47' boat and I really enjoyed talking to him about our mutual love of sailing. Angelica is from Columbia and has worked around the world as crew on luxury yachts. When working, she is a cooking, cleaning, sailing dynamo very focused on her tasks. But we discovered how fun and social she is when not working one night when we were drinking "jungle juice" around a campfire.



Thierry, Sebastian, Ian, Karolina, Mitch & Radek

 Central America has been awesome. I loved the Caribbean, especially the San Blas Islands, The Bay Islands of Honduras and Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. My favourite country so far was Nicaragua. I also loved the indigenous culture so prevalent in Guatemala and Panama was also great with all the diversity from big modern cites, the canal, Caribbean Islands and fishing and diving in the Pacific. Now that I'm finally on another continent, I can't help but wonder what adventures I will find and what countries will be my favourite at the end of my travels.



Passing Sailboat on the way to Cartagena

 I have finally formulated a rough travel plan for South America. The continent is enormous and I know I will be spending many days on buses. So, I want to be somewhat efficient on how I travel to try and reduce the days and weeks spent on a bus. I plan to travel west from Columbia to Ecuador, then south to Peru, Bolivia and then Chile. I want to be in Patagonia during winter (summer down here) and then travel up the east side of the continent being in Brazil for Carnival next February. I'm planning on ending my trip in Venezuela and flying home from there. For anyone interested in joining me in Peru, I think I will be there in October.

Ciao.

SANTA CATALINA & PANAMA CITY, PANAMA - JUL 3 - JUL 12

On the morning of Tuesday July 3rd, I head to Santa Catalina on the southern Pacific Coast. Santa Catalina is one of the best known surfing towns in Panama and is also really well known for diving at the nearby Isla de Coiba. It takes me about 7 hours to get from David to Santa Catalina and I have to change buses in Santiago and Sona. I meet a guy named Ivan from Norway on the last bus and we share a 4 person dorm room at a nice hostel in the centre of town called Cabana Rolo. The town is really tiny, it is only a single road about 2 blocks long with a few more hotels spread out along the beach to the east of town. The main surfing spot is on a nice break right in front of town. The surfing is only good a couple of hours either side of high tide and the waves are usually in the 3 to 4 metre range. But I didn't come for the surfing, I came to dive at Isla de Coiba which will be my first dive in the Pacific. The first available dive is on Friday morning. Diving is a bit more costly here, a 2 tank dive, some snorkelling and a trip to the ranger station on Coiba is $145.00. A couple from Australia had dived the day I arrived and they saw lots of White Tipped Sharks and huge quantities of fish so I am excited about the prospects. There is even a good chance of seeing Manta Rays which would be awesome as well.



Beach East of Santa Catalina

 The next day Ivan and I hike east down the coast exploring the local beaches. We come to one huge sandy beach about 5km from town. It's a beautiful beach but a bit challenging to swim there as the surf is pretty high. While swimming, we find that there is a pretty good rip tide so we have to be very careful and not venture far from shore or we will get swept into some rocks. Some distant thunder chases us back to town just after lunch and it starts raining just a few minutes before we get back and it pours for the rest of the afternoon. I spend the afternoon being entertained by the hostel owner's pet Parrot named Lola and working on my blog.

On Thursday Ivan goes on a fishing and snorkelling tour to Coiba and I spend the day with a Swiss guy who has been staying at the hostel for a couple weeks. He has a set daily walking tour with lots of stops for drinks and food long the way at little restaurants and surfing hotels. The hostel's dog follows us the whole day and gets into a fight at almost every stop. Well fight isn't exactly the right word, it's more like he gets beat up at every stop by other dogs. It's a great way to spend a relaxing day other than the dog fights. We get back to the hostel just before 5:00PM and the rains starts shortly after and this time it is a wicked storm. The power soon goes and everything in town including all the restaurants quickly close. The only thing that stays open is a small store where I buy some buns, canned tuna and fruit for dinner.



1st Dive Site at Coiba

 The storm is still raging when I go to bed and I'm starting to worry about my dive trip in the morning but it's nice and sunny and calm when I wake up. Coiba is about a 2 hour boat ride away and there are 4 of us diving. There are 2 young English guys who are taking their first Open Water dive as part of their certification course and a guy from the US who dived with me. The currents in this part of the Pacific are very strong so we do a drift dive on both dives. This means the boat drops us off at one end of the reef and then picks us up at the other and we literally drift along just a few metres of the reef. We probably had 7 or 8kms of tide with us. The visibility was not quite as good as the Caribbean but was still about 15 to 20 metres. The first thing I notice is the quantity of fish, there are not as many different species or as many real colourful fish but the size of the schools is impressive. The fish all seem to be bigger with lots of Barracuda and even a few Mahi Mahi. Then we start to see sharks and not just Nurse Sharks, there are White Tip sharks cruising around and they are curious and come very close to check us out. They are quite small and I don't find them menacing at all. I don't think my heart rate hardly changed a beat. There are also dozens of Green Moray Eels and lots of Toad Fish that blend right into the reef.


Ranger Station

 We head to a beach on Coiba itself for lunch between the 2 dives. There is a fairly large ranger station and even a few basic cabins that people stay at. This area used to be part of a large prison complex on the island but the prison has been closed for over 20 years and the jungle has claimed back most of the rest of the prison. Apparently this prison was unique as there were no bars on cells except special cells for punishment. There were also no fences or guard towers. The jungle, the tides, the distance to the mainland and the sharks were all the security that was needed to keep the convicts in the prison. There are lots of Bull Sharks around the island but we did not see any.

Snorkelling Beach Near Coiba

After lunch and before the 2nd dive, we snorkel around one shallow reef which was also excellent for quantity of fish and there was a great variety of fish as well. After the 2nd dive, we head back to Santa Catalina while racing some incoming storms and we get to the beach about the same time as the storm but this night it only lasts an hour or so. Overall, the diving was great and I finally saw some nice reef sharks up close and personal but no Manta Rays and the snorkelling was good too. I'm not sure where I will dive again, maybe in Ecuador.

The next morning I'm off on a bus to Sona which is only 1.5 hours and then onto an express bus to Panama City which is another 6 hours. Saturday can be a bad day to travel because hostels and hotels seem to be busy on weekends. So, my first couple of hostel choices are completely full and I finally settle on a budget hotel in the Caledonia district after making reservations in Mamallenas Hostel for Monday. I spend that evening planning some site seeing and I'm annoyed to find only boat tours of the canal on Saturdays listed on the internet. That means I will be in Panama City for at least a week and I also need to book my sailboat to Cartegena but I don't want to do this until I am sure about the canal boat tour. So, I decide to go to the Miraflores Locks Visitor Centre the next morning.



Miraflores Lock & Pacific in Background

 Miraflores is the best land location to see the locks in action and is a set of 2 locks closest to the Pacific. I arrive around 11:00AM and have just missed the last north bound ship heading to the Caribbean. I find out that all ships head north from midnight to noon and then all ships head south from noon to midnight. This reduces the chance of a collision in the narrow confines of the man made lakes that the ships travel through while crossing the 50 mile wide Ismuth of Panama. There are only 3 locks at the Pacific coast and 3 more at the Caribbean coast, the boats are lifted a total of 57 feet above sea level and then travel through a man made lake the rest of the trip. I had 3 hours to explore the exhibits in the visitor centre before the 1st ship arrived, can you tell? One thing the visitor centre needs is better Audio Video in the exhibits although the theatre AV system for the video presentation was pretty good.


Panamax Container Ship

The most amazing thing about the locks is there are no pumps. The water levels within the locks are only raised and lowered by gravity. Each time a ship exits the locks into either the Pacific or the Caribbean, 27 million gallons of fresh water goes into the ocean with the ship. The locks are 1050 feet long and 110 feet wide. A Panamax Class ship is the largest size ships built specifically to just fit into the canal and are up to 975 feet long and 105 feet wide. The new locks presently being built will be 1400feet long and 180feet wide and will allow new Super Panamax ships to transit the canal more than doubling the present capacity. Pumps will be used on the new locks ensuring no additional strain on the fresh water supplies of the lake since there is not enough fresh water to accommodate them using a gravity based system.

By the time the ships start coming the viewing area is packed. I stay and watch 3 or 4 Panamax ships get lowered into the Pacific from a couple of different viewing locations. I really enjoyed my day at Miraflores Locks as reflected in my gallery by the number of pictures I took.

On Monday I check into Mamallenas at 11:00AM and am pleased to find my room is ready. They have a travel agent across the street so I head over to book a boat for a half tour of the canal and I am really happy to find out that one boat goes every Tuesday so I book it for $135.00. That afternoon I head down to the Calzada de Amador which is a long causeway built when the canal was built.


Calzada de Amador

 This causeway joins 4 islands to the mainland and is about 3kms long. It protects the exit point of the canal from the tides and the silt that the tides carry as well as being a strategic military location protecting the canal entrance/exit during the early years of the canal. It is a nice walk along the causeway with beautiful views of the modern downtown city centre and of the Bridge of the Americas that spans the 2 sides of the canal.




Panama City Skyline

 Tuesday is the canal boat tour day. I'm not going to get to travel the whole canal but the boat leaves from the Calzada de Amador, heads under the Bridge of the Americas, goes through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel Locks and finally goes through the Galliard Cut. It's a beautiful day and the boat is a old100 foot long wooden ship originally built for an American millionaire named JP Getty around 1912 and was later owned by John Wayne. It has been touring the canal for many years and holds the record for the most times passing thrugh the canal of any ship. 


Bridge of the Americas

 We soon cross under the bridge and are only minutes away from Miraflores. We enter the locks along with a small freighter and are tied along side a large tug. A nice 45 foot sailboat heading from Peru to the Virgin Islands then rafts onto us. It takes 10 minutes for the first lock to fill, then we move into the 2nd lock and then it's just a couple of hundred metres to the Pedro Miguel Locks.





Entering Miraflores Locks

 Finally after about 2 hours, we are into the lake and the start of the Galliard Cut. This is where the largest portion of the canal work took place. The Galliard Cut is where the mountains of the continental divide had to be notched out. Over a billion tons of rock was removed, much of this rock was used to build the Calzada de Amador and used to create all the cement required to build the canal locks, retaining walls, and dams. The boat tour started at 9:00AM and finished at about 4:00PM. Again, by the number of pictures that are posted in my gallery, you can probably tell I enjoyed the tour.



Galliard Cut

 A lot of the construction of the new canal locks was visible particularly just west of the Miraflores locks. There was a non stop stream of the mega size dump trucks heading in and out of the site and there were dozens of dredgers particularly along the Galliard Cut which is the narrowest part of the canal. The opening of the new locks is scheduled to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of the opening of the canal in 2014. Presently the canal generates over 12 millions dollars in revenue from ships every day and that total will more than double once the canal is complete.



Dredger at Galliard Gap

 The relationship between the US and Panama is a bit strained to this day. Many residents forget that the US support of the Panama government which was part of the canal negotiations in 1903 was instrumental on Panama successfully separating from Columbia without a civil war. As a result, the US got control of the canal and a 10 mile buffer zone either side of the canal when the canal treaty was signed right after independence. In the mid sixties, there were large demonstrations throughout Panama against the US as there was no timeline in the treaty to turn the canal over to the Panama government which culminated in demonstrators with flags forcibly moving into the US controlled canal zone with numerous Panamanians casualties. Finally in the 70ies, US president Jimmy Carter signed a treaty with Panama giving up control of the canal and the resulting revenues, which occurred in 1999. In 1989, the US invasion of Panama to oust Panamanian President Noriega inflamed tensions between the US and average Panamanian people. Even today throughout Panama no US flags fly on any government owned lands or buildings. It's absence is particularly noticeable in the Plaza of Flags in Panama City.



That night after my tour, I booked a sailboat to Cartagena Columbia via the San Blas Islands. It's a 43 foot Beneteau called Corto and it had some great reviews in the Lonely Planet and Trip Advisors website. It leaves on Thursday July 12th and I can't wait. On Wednesday, I visit the very modern downtown core of the city but a huge thunder storm moves in in the early afternoon forcing me back to the hostel during torrential rains. It is rainy season for 9 months of the year in this part of Panama making the present Panama Canal a possibility without the use of pumps.
Well I only have a few more days left in Panama and Central America. On the morning of the 12th, I leave early on a shuttle to the San Blas Islands to meet up with Corto. We will have 3 leisure days in the islands before the 2 day crossing to Cartagena. I wonder how many other travellers will be on the boat and what they will be like? I wonder how many of them will get sea sick?

Until next time:)

BOCAS DEL TORO, BOQUETE & BOCA CHICA, PANAMA - JUN 23 - JULY 2

Panama Boarder

Panama, my last country before South America. I catch a bus from Puerto Viejo to the boarder which is a small bridge over a river. Until last year, there was only on old railroad bridge over the river that both pedestrians and vehicles used to cross but a new bridge has been built for vehicles which is a good thing when you look at how rickety the rail bridge is that the pedestrians use. My guide book indicated that Panama requires an onward ticket leaving the country to get in to Panama as a tourist but the writer says that in over a dozen boarder crossings, he had never been asked for his ticket. So, I had decided to chance it. Mistake! Panama immigration asks me for my ticket out of Panama. When I can't produce one, I get pulled into the office and I'm asked all kinds of questions about where I'm going and what am I doing while travelling. The guy's actually pretty friendly but he says he is not supposed to let me in without the ticket. He asks me if it is OK to search my stuff and gets a couple of soldiers. One stands with his hand on his side arm while the other goes carefully through my stuff with me. After that I go sit in a small room and I am guarded by a soldier while the immigration officer calls Panama City to do a computer security check on me. After more than 2 hours, he finally comes back, asks me a couple more questions and then says I'm good to enter Panama. I thank him profusely, and I then catch a shuttle bus to Almirante where I get on a water taxi to Bocas Town.

Almirante River Front

Panama is one time zone ahead than the rest of Central America. It is also a long skinny country but it actually stretches almost perfectly west to east from the southern end of Costa Rica and the Panama Canal is north to south not east to west. There is a small peninsula on the southern side of Panama that has an east coast where the sunrises over the Pacific. The Panamanian currency is call the Balboa. It is always equal to the US dollar in terms of exchange rate. When the currency was introduced a few years ago, the people of Panama would not accept it and continued to use the US dollar. Now, most of the coins are in Balboas (quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies) but all the paper money is US. The boat trip to Bocas Town is pretty cool, every shore I can see all the way there is full of Mangrove Trees with no beaches.

Bocas Town

It takes about 45 minutes to get to Bocas Town and it is on the southern end of Isla Colon. There is a another town called Old Town on the north end of Isla Bastimentos just across a small channel from Bocas. I book a private room at Hostel Hansa (named after the owner's cat) for $13US. With the time change, the delay at the boarder and the travel time, it is now almost 4:00PM and too late to get to a beach. Too bad as it's beautiful out and extremely hot and of course humid too.

Red Frog Beach

I decide to check out the many tour companies in town and book a full days snorkelling and beach tour the next day for only $20US. The next morning I arrive at the tour boat wharf and find I'm snorkelling with a Panama family, 2 older women from Colorado and a guy from Spain. The snorkel tour starts with a boat ride to Luguna Bocatorito to view dolphins. Bocatorito is a large bay in the estuary and is a popular place for dolphins to feed. Unfortunately, all the tour companies know there will be dolphins hear so there are lots of tour boats there basically chasing the dolphins. It's the off season and only 5 or 6 boats were there but I can just imagine what it would be like during the busy season. We then motor to a floating restaurant where we can place lunch orders and then to a coral reef right in front of the restaurant. The reef is a bit sparse of coral and there are not a lot of fish but the colours of the reef are spectacular. The corals are red, orange, pink, purple, blue and green along with more typical white and browns. An hour goes by in a flash and other than the colourful corals, I see some large angel fish and a file fish along with a lot of small reef fish.

Dock Near Red Frog Beach

After lunch, we motor through mangroves to a small wharf where we dock. We walk about 1/2km through the jungle to Red Frog Beach. The beach is exposed to the open Caribbean Sea and is beautiful. We hang out for a couple hours before heading out for our last stop for some more snorkelling. We snorkel along a rock reef wall at a place called Hospital Point and the second I get in the water, I'm surrounded by thousands of sardines. Feeding amongst the bait fish are small Barracudas and dozens of Alligator Needlefish. It is much deeper here that the 1st spot and I notice how poor the visibility is (less than 10m). I see a group of scuba divers in the murky depths below me and decide right then that I will not be diving here in Bocas del Toro. It's a short motor back to Bocas Town and we've been gone almost 7 hours. The ladies from our tour want to hear about my trip through Central America so I agree to meet them for dinner at a local restaurant called Pirates.

Star Fish Beach

The next day I catch a local bus to Bocas del Drago at the far north end of the island for a day at Starfish Beach. It's about a 25 minute bus ride followed by a 30 minute walk. The beach is nice but there is not a lot of beach between the high tide mark and the jungle. The beach is also very steep and in 3 or 4 steps, it drops off way over my head. I snorkel along the drop off and see many starfish and some big Barracudas. The rest of the day is spent relaxing, swimming and reading. I have such a stressful life and it seems I've been putting a lot of time into relaxing at the beach the last few weeks. That night a huge thunder & lightning storm rolls in around 10:00PM and it does not stop raining until the middle of the next afternoon so I just hang out in town that day and make plans to leave the next day to Boquete.

I had been told that you cannot access the rest of Panama from this region by land but find out that is not true so after catching the water taxi back to the mainland, I catch a bus over the continental divide to David, and then another bus on to Boquete. I get there around 4:30PM and wait at my first hostel of choice for about 1.5 hours talking to a nice girl from the Netherlands while I wait for a staff person to show up. I finally give up and walk to Mamallenas Hostal and book a nice private room. I'm feeling like I might be catching a cold and after a nice dinner, go to bed nice and early. I wake up with a really bad sinus cold. Oh well, I've been kind of expecting to catch something and at least I've got a nice room and Boquete is a nice town to do nothing in. It is about 1200m above sea level in the central highlands. The temperature ranges from the low 20ies at night to the high 20ies during the day with only moderate humidity. There are all kinds of ex-pats in Boquete and the surrounding area so there are always lots of Gringos everywhere. There is even a large supermarket open 24/7. Boquete is known by travellers because of all the great hiking trails but I spent 3 more nights there doing nothing other than watching some European Cup soccer while battling my cold. The other highlight was eating dinner at a real nice Peruvian Restaurant called Machu Pichu.

Ernie and Mako Boat

I meet a guy in the hostel from Panama City Florida named Monty. He has just turned 61 and is looking for a place to retire and Boquete looks like his town of choice. He asks me if I'm interested in going fishing with a retired guy from Alaska named Ernie. I say yes and we head outside to where Ernie relaxing in the central plaza and I find out that Ernie has a 23 ft Mako boat with a 225 Yamaha engine and all kinds of fishing equipment. He has just had some kind of repair to the motor done and needs to put 10 hours of low RPMs on the motor before he can use it like normal. He is not supposed to go above 2200RPM which is a perfect trolling speed. Monty and I are invited to go fishing with him on July 1st to Boca Chica which is 1.5 hours away. He will drive us there and has a place we can stay one night after fishing. I'm still feeling pretty lousy but not too bad to go fishing so I'm up early to go the next morning.

Ernie and Monty

We meet up with Ernie around 8:00AM but by the time we leave, it is after 9:00AM and we don't get to Boca Chica until after 11:00AM. On the car ride there, we decide not to go fishing until the next morning since we were so late in leaving Boquete which is fine with me. The town is so small, I almost would not call it a town. There is no town centre and no main street with small businesses but rather just a residential neighbourhood. It turns out that Ernie has built a small hotel with about 6 rooms all with AC. He has no staff and almost never has anyone stay there. Monty and I each get our own room and then we decide to head to the marina.

Fish Lodge at Boca Chica

The marina is impressive, it's right of the river and has a small dock with a good boat ramp. All the boats are kept on their boat trailers. Most are kept under covered in a large structure divided up into stalls for each boat. The boats are all top notch open ocean fishing boats designer for heading well offshore for Marlin or Sailfish. Unfortunately, we can't go way out but inshore is supposed to be good for Mahi Mahi, Wahoo, King, Barracuda and a variety of Tuna. We meet Carlos who owns the marina and is from Columbia. He's a real character with a sarcastic wit and he gives Ernie a hard time about not telling him that he was coming because the engine repairs are not done yet.

View of Boca Chica Harbour

But, he promises to fix it that afternoon so we head out for lunch and to find a TV to watch the European Cup final. We end up a high end fish lodge with a beautiful view of the river mouth, a nice patio restaurant and a 52" bigscreen. Apparently the only other accommodations withing 20km is about 5 or 6 very high end all inclusive fish lodges which I take for a good sign. After watching Spain trounce the Italians, we head back over to the marina just as Carlos is wrapping up the repairs, so we are set for the morning. We drive about 25km to the nearest restaurant for dinner and are back early to bed.

We're up at 5:30AM and at the boat by 7:00PM. Carlos tows us to the boat ramp and puts the boat in, the tide is very low and Ernie bottoms out the engine on the river bottom. The prop is aluminum and is mangled. Thankfully Ernie has a spare prop and Carlos quickly changes it. I hope this isn't foreshadowing of things to come. The Mako boat is a very roomy design and very broad in the beam. The driving console is center to the boat with a deck all the way around it. We can't get the GPS to power up, I hope Ernie knows his way around. The quality of the rods and reels is great and Ernie has at least 10 rods and reels.

Outer Islands Near Boca Chica

However, he forgot one of his fishing boxes and we don't have any way of tying any lures not already on leaders and we have no weights. Oh well, we have a great selection of hoochies all ready to go and all the fish we are after are normally near the surface. Ernie is 74 and I have figured out that he is not as sharp as he maybe once was. We motor out of the river and quickly get 4 lines out and continue out of coast area heading for some outer islands. Not much happens in the first couple of hours but we do see some dolphins. I decide to check the lines to make sure we aren't dragging seaweed, as I let one line out, wham I get a good strike and the release is on as I was letting line out and now the fish is just ripping line out. It takes me a fee seconds to flick the lever over to activate the drag on the reel and I've burnt the tip of my thumb on the reel as the fish was tearing line out.

The rod and real are very duty and I soon have the fish pulled in and its about a 10lb Bonito which is a type of Mackerel. So, at least we've caught dinner. A short time later, we get another good strike on the same rod and Monty pulls in a nice 12 lb Mahi Mahi (also called Dorado). We get a couple nice strikes on one of the other rods but the fish are gone about the same time we grab the rod. We finally get the outer islands and I start to change the lures on the lines where we had no action. Shortly after, we get another strike on one of the new lures and I'm fighting another nice Mahi Mahi but I lose it. When I get the line in and check the hook, I notice there is a clear plastic tube protecting the hook, no wonder I lost it but surprising it was on for as long as it was. Needless to say, I remove the plastic tube. We start heading in and at about the same spot as where we got the first 2 fish, we get a nice double header. Monty and I bring in 2 more Benitos which we decide to release and a few minutes later I catch another Mahi Mahi. It's just a small one but the hooks gone through the eye then hooked badly in the gills so we keep it. What an awesome day on the water. The weather was gorgeous and it was so calm, only about a 2 or 3 foot chop. When we get back to marina, Ernie and Monty both say they need to be back in Boquete ASAP, so there is no time to cook dinner. We are madly getting the boat all packed away and I did not even get time to get a photo of the fish.

Within an hour of getting back, we are back in Ernie's car heading for Boquete. I get Ernie to drop me off in David which will save me an hours travelling the next day so I get a room at the Purple Casa Hostel. The next day, I will catch a bus to Santa Catalina. It is on the southern coast near the island of Coiba. It is a surfing town but the diving at Coiba is supposed to be the best in Panama but more on that later.

I've taken quite a few taxis while travelling Central America and quite a lot have stopped for gas while I'm in it. And very surprisingly, at least half of the cabbies have left the engine on while filling up. I've never seen that before and find it very weird and I can't help but wonder how safe it is? Once again, the typical dinner at a restaurant for locals is rice, beans and some king of meat or fish with fried platines. This has been the same in every country in Central America, I hope it's different in South America because it's getting a bit boring.

Until next time.